Dark Souls 3 vs Dark Souls

So which one was better?

Dark Souls had the best atmosphere, I can't fathom how great my first experience was and the setting. The budgeting part led to its downfall. Dark Souls III is half of what Dark Souls was, relying solely on references and basing off Lordran - as if Miyazaki just traced his own artwork.

>1st half of one>3
That being said I still had more fun with 1. 3 felt like AAA shit that was polished to a point that it was bland.

Dark Souls had the benefit of being fresh. Dark Souls 3, while fun, didn’t really take the series in any new directions. Felt like the devs got a little too comfortable.

The objective choice is
>BB>DS>DS2>DeS>DS3

3 is shit
2 is shit

des, das and bb are the only good entries

case closed

Is DS3 this bad?
Why?

It’s not bad, per se, it’s just very unoriginal and uninspired. Also, the DLC’s were shit.

But was the fighting system bad?

Dark Souls 3 is the superior game in every regard, the only issue being that this series has been rehashed to fucking death so everyone was bored to tears when it released. Same reason Bloodborne couldn't even sell 3 million copies.

I heard some people claim DS3 was more casual. Why would they claim that?

Why is parrying so garbage in dark souls 3, but in every other game in the series it works just like it should

3 is a lot more approachable for a casual audience. I had a friend who couldn't stand the combat pace of 1, but got into the series with 3 and has even played and enjoyed 2.

I'm still a bigger fan of 1 due to how interconnected it is, how much freedom you have to choose your approach to the game, and how the online systems are handled.

The fighting system is alright, though I feel as though the 'Weapon Arts' gimmick really is tacked on. Power Stancing from 2 was more interesting to play with, imo, and I only ever used Weapon Arts if I specifically was building around it.

>3 is a lot more approachable for a casual audience.
What makes it easier?

I'm unsure if it's due to being used to the game's systems or just due to design, but the bosses in 3 were far less difficult for me than any of the other games (including Bloodborne and DeS).

There was only a few I had to fight twice, and the only ones I had to take three or more tries on were Aldrich and Nameless King.

I think 3's presentation is alright, albeit notably linear when compared to its predecessors, though the NPC progression is as nebulous as ever.

Good point.
I swear they changed the timing for it.
It's a lot easier to mis-time the parry, take damage, and land the riposte now.
But if you're talking about online? The netcode still is, and always has been, shit.

I don't even have to play Dark Souls 3 to tell you that Dark Souls 1 is better.

The game sets players on a much more rigid path, so there's far less clueless first timers getting lost. The combat is much more fluid than the previous games, which were more of a slow and plotted out affair. The game is also quick to give the player obviously strong equipment. The 'tutorial' is also way better than the previous games'.

So, for someone who doesn't understand the mechanics or how to approach the game at all, it comes down to

Dark Souls 3
>Combat is easier to engage with, Mechanics are more transparent, you're set for gear, and you know where to go

versus

Dark Souls 1
>Potential to be absolutely lost, have no idea what much of anything does beyond basic gameplay, no idea if you're bad or if its just your equipment, etc.

Honestly, with the way the game is presented, you can play the series absolutely out of order and still enjoy it just as much.

One thing thats easier with 3 is you pretty much always know where to go. At least from what I remember, its been a while. In part 1 you can get ass fucked a the very start in several places and there are points, if you ar eplaying blind and its your first time where you just dont know wtf to do. Happens to a lot fo people. Doesnt seem as extreme in part 3, but it maybe depends if its your 1st game or not. idk

DaS3 is fucking amazing and is clearly better than DaS1. People are blinding by nostalgia and forget just how uninspired and boring everything from the Demon Ruins on was.

3 really only has two branching paths that immediately come to mind.

The first involves killing an NPC, which results in a boss fight that any first-time player is likely to lose anyway.

The second is Cathedral of the Deep, which is necessary to return to later anyway and isn't punishing if you go there early.

>Everything from Demon Ruins on

So... Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith? I mean, that's pretty much it. Maybe you meant
>everything after Anor Londo
but even then, I liked the DLC, Tomb of Giants, and Sif's Library.

It isn't, because even basic enemies are far more aggressive than they've ever been in the series.

Also Kiln of the First Flame.

>tfw you managed to navigate Tomb of Giants without a light source and then you died to the grave-lord right away

I stopped playing the game for a while and just came back to it and found out I had the light maggot hat and was just completely retarded.

Yeah, too bad they also do far less damage than they have ever done, largely mitigating their threat.

Also, you quickly get tons of estus that even taking damage isn't that big of an issue.

I didnt play online but I found that, DS3 combat is focused moreso on dealing damage quickly compared with DS1 which is more about not taking hits and is far slower and more methodical, which is something I think a lot of people appreciate.

You should have also had the skull lantern

DS3 lets you oonga-boonga and gorilla
DS1 needs you to hold your shield up and wheel around every enemy and boss to stab it in the ass, except for ones that break your block, then you gotta bait out their attack and dodge around to the ass.

I'm not a very smart person.

I went through the entire catacombs without a magic weapon the 1st time. And Id kill skellies my making them fall off the cliffs or kicking them off, until I could get to each summoner. Took a good while but I did it.

I like some stuff in 1 more, but 3 is very good and the gameplay and combat is way better. Bloodborne feels very fluid and satisfying as well. The first two games and especially the second don't have as nice of a combat system and gameplay. The 2nd feels like shit most of the time and the bosses are lame.

And bosses. You have to roll through like 5 sword slashes before getting to hit them once.

1. no question.

>largely mitigating their threat.
That doesn't mitigate their threat at all though. They hit you more for less damage, they come at you much faster, and there's also generally more of them to deal with at once compared to 1. If you're new to the game it's much easier to get overwhelmed.

>Also, you quickly get tons of estus
In DaS you start off with 5 and can even get 10 from a centrally located bonfire (that you start at after the tutorial), and that's without even kindling which you can do with the numerous humanity you're going to have. In 3, you don't even get 10 Estus at all until you're almost done with the game.

Or just parry

that is how I did it too. I started running through segments just to kill the summoner, die and repeat.

>Same reason Bloodborne couldn't even sell 3 million copies.

No this is because the series doesn't sell as much as its fame would seem to imply. This is because the games have a reputation for being hard and most normies have a hard time with it. So this is why the Souls games don't sell as well as one would think. Considering what they are I think they sell very well.

>3 is you pretty much always know where to go
spent a fucking week in dark souls 1 trying to get through the graveyard because I thought skeletons were weak

the fighting system is not what made the series great. it was level design and clever enemy/trap placement. 2 and 3 mostly didn't fill the same shoes that DeS and DaS left behind.
BB didn't have great level design either, but the change in combat mechanics made up for it and was a great change of pace while still keeping the same framework of gameplay.

Man, one of the best things about being a Demon's Souls veteran going into Dark Souls for the first time was that you know what to anticipate. In DeS if you go the Shrine of Storms right away, you'll get your ass shredded by skeletons.

Depends on what you like in a Souls game.
If you're in it for the atmosphere, grounded fantasy, exploration, and slow/weighty combat then DaS1 is better.
If you prefer faster/smoother combat, hard boss fights, more QoL, and surreal dark fantasy then DaS3 is better.

DaS3 confused difficulty for annoyance, much like Monster Hunter. O&S worked because they were the exception, no other boss outside of the DLC forces you to roll around that much looking for an opening.

The combat in these games has never been amazing so DaS3 focusing on it didn't help much. Weapon arts feel very half assed, there's too many weapons you shouldn't bother using, rolling has too many iframes, enemy encounters feel samey, etc.
The game just didn't do anything new and gave into the memes. Fans got what they wanted, unfortunately.

3 but neither of them are good

Wrong, Dark Souls still has the best world along all of them. I'm still mad that it's the only game in the series to not use the hub world + warping system. I loved learning how the world is connected and all the shortcuts.

>the second game feels like shit

Guess you didn't get it. It's slower paced, mostly to weed out the gotta go fast plebs like you.

>DaS3 confused difficulty for annoyance, much like Monster Hunter. O&S worked because they were the exception, no other boss outside of the DLC forces you to roll around that much looking for an opening.
this, especially the bosses that could leap from side of the arena to the other and spam ranged attacks

Too bad Dark Souls doesn't encourage exploration at all and puts redundant barriers wherever you go that don't unlock until you're two thirds done with the game.

>Oh wow, you made it through Blight Town! Here's a dead end, have fun getting back up.

If you like exploration, play a better game for it, like La Mulana.

You're also better than you've ever been before in a Souls game and enemies have never stunned easier.

>Game literally rewards you with the PvP Covenant, Rite of Kindling, etc. if you explore harder areas first
>Doesn't encourage exploration

Okay.

BB > DaS > DaS III > DeS > Shit > DaS II

Oh man, it's awesome they're more aggressive, too bad nearly every enemy is stagger-locked by most R1 combos.

>3 is better
>neither of them are good
it's nice you have opinions but just so you know they are wrong.

>It's slower paced
DaS2 is faster than DaS1. The mocap is so bad that no one notices.

Literally what?

Also, I'm thinking about things like how drinking Estus takes far longer and it slowly heals you up rather than being instant, whereas in 3 you can just chug for fucking days.

A bunch of useless trash is not a reward, no. What is the rite of kindling compared to taking the undead burg route and getting, what, several more permanent estus flask upgrades, amazing equipment and a forge?

2 struck the best balance between speed and weight. It's almost instantly obvious which attacks you are meant to dodge and which attacks you are meant to block.

That's not exploration. That's sequence breaking if even that, which would be really fucking pointless if you didn't gain anything with it.

The most this series does to reward exploration is give you cool unique itens or rings, which is adequate for what is a primarily action game with RPG elements (with an obnoxious habit of trying to be a platformer from time to time).

After DaS3's Firelink Shrine, I realize that Majula needed more of it's NPC's populating the houses. It's a coastal town but almost everyone is just sitting on the grass

I was mostly thinking about combat. The Zwei and Claymore are much faster in DaS2 than in DaS1.

>Useless trash
>Literally the fucking PvP covenant
>he thinks its sequence-breaking to go anywhere but The Burg first
What a fucking plebian.

Nito's sword and unlocking an optional boss fight early are pretty neat rewards.

No. Covenants being pointless shit is the single most prominent complaint about DaS.

And then you have to walk all the way back, that's worth it, right? A game rewarding exploration would not make the reward not worth the trip.

>best "single player" experience, map, atmosphere, exploration design, combat design
DS1
>best character creator, options for builds, magic, pvp gameplay soul level BS excluded obviously
DS2
>best gottagofast roll combat, visual fidelity, boss design and boss originality, pvp matchmaking balance
DS3

If DS1 had greater than 4 rolling directions, cloth physics, a framerate above 15 in blighttown/anywhere with lava, and invasion matchmaking that accounted for pyro flame level it would be the definitive best game, but overall I enjoyed all of them. Only played DS2 after SotFS though, so I didn't get burned too hard by it and found it fun in it's own right, but it's still probably my least favorite (and least played)

>and boss originality
How so? Wombo combos aren't original, delayed attacks aren't original, and DeS did all the gimmicks first.

>grounded fantasy
>surreal dark fantasy
How is DS1 more grounded?

Maybe he means 1 has a more geographically consistent world? 3 relies on the whole "the lands are converging" thing way too much.

It's definitely a little more grounded than pus exploding out of people, people turning into trees, pilgrim butterflies, the world collapsing into itself, and a guy who ate everyone but you.

I don't know what he's one about but if I had to make a distinction between the two, I'd say that DaS is more impressionism while DaSIII is straight up Zdzisław Beksiński.

I never had a ps3, so I don't know about DeS.
All I know is DS2 had shit for bosses in general which I didn't mind too much personally, but they were pretty uninspired even without comparison to the other games, and outside of O+S and Sif I didn't find the DS1 bosses to be "original".
Honestly though, bosses have always been my least favorite parts of the games in general, so I can definitely say that opinion is gonna be my weakest. I always liked progressing through areas more than taking on the big bad, and my favorite souls boss will always be DS1 gargoyles since that was boss that stumped me for the longest and forced me to improve the most in order to progress

the one you played first

Shitter here. Bosses are about the only part I like about the games outside of the designs and landscapes. Screw progressing through areas, it's only ever mildly rewarding and full of bullshit traps that aren't fun after the first death.
Though my opinion's probably skewed by only having beaten base Dark Souls 2 with no patches (That I can recall, anyhow) and Bloodborne so far.

>I haven't played this game but I know it's bad!
Classic Sup Forums

Sinh, that bigass Dragon, the Lost Sinner and Vendrik were nice bosses.

I think between all the meming and shitflinging, the importance of the game's atmosphere--and I mean complete atmosphere, not just visuals--often gets lost in discussions like these.

When you talk about DS3 and the original DS, you can argue mechanics, balance, bosses, DLC, and level structure all you'd like, but generally you reach the conclusion that, one way or the other, they're really close to one another. DS has better level design but worse balance and a fucked-up second half, whereas DS3's bosses, with the exception of the DLC, have lower peaks than DS1's do, but also higher troughs. About the only real thing that would swing it is DS3's more modern mechanics and unlocked framrate, which are big boons in its favor.

But if you look at atmosphere I think the original game is the clear winner. It's not that DS is the first iteration of a crumbling kingdom concept, but it introduces the concept that will become central in the later games: the lord souls, the abyss, linking the fire. All the other games are in one way or another derivative of these concepts, and honestly DS2 is a shit derivation and DS3 just steals shit half the time, albeit it does it well. But in the original game the sense of mystery, interconnectedness, and your lack of foreknowledge or even basic understanding lead to a sense of investment which isn't as easily replicable in DS3, and which I don't think you can discount. And when you combine that with the other things DS1 really does right, particularly the level design, enemy aesthetics, and music (which blows DS3's musical design out of the water), I think it makes for a game which I'm more interested in returning to.

They're both great games, and they're both neck-and-neck, but if you have to call it I think it has to be for the original. So much of DS3 shamelessly borrows from its predecessor for a reason, and that's because, from a level, visual, and musical design standpoint, DS1 was the pinnacle. Combat is where DS has improved.

>which blows DS3's musical design out of the water
lol no, DaS1's score is great but it doesn't have the range of DaS3's.

DS3's score doesn't have range. It's all tropey buildup to a peak, over-using choirs and violins. Both of which I love, don't get me wrong, but they're used on almost every single track as the main elements, and all of those tracks are also uniformly loud and bombastic.

I love Yuka Kitamura, but she should've been reserved for certain extremely special tracks, because her specialty is composing for situations which are extremely high-pressure. If you compare the entire DS3 soundtrack to the DS1 soundtrack, you're immediately going to notice that Sakuraba has more versatility, and not everything is always rapid and instrumentally similar like Kitamura has a habit of composing. Nito, Gwyn, Four Kings, Gwyndolin and Gwynavere are great examples of the versatility. He still uses violin more than I'd like, but he has the capacity to go for organs, harps, piano, etc. in a way Kitamura is often hesitant to, and his music doesn't usually fall into the trap of making the violin absolutely predominant either.

Wrong, it's just the high energy pieces leave more of an impression on you than the low key ones so you think it's all bombastic.

DaS > BB > DeS > DaS3 >>> DaS2
Objectively correct rankings here.

No, I listened to the whole DS3 soundtrack yesterday. You might be able to convince me of some bias if that weren't the case, but it wasn't just my impression throughout the soundtrack, it was reflected in the songs I chose to keep.

The songs which are abnormal on the soundtrack are almost all either composed by someone else (Wolnir, for example, or Deacons of the Deep) or are introductory/promotional pieces not actually featured beyond the main menu (Premonition and the main theme). About the only two other examples of Kitamura herself being restrained are Firelink and Secret Betrayal, which are nice tracks but don't detract from her failure to diversify on the boss themes.

Dark Souls is a clunky piece of cobbled-together trash. I doubt 3 could be worse than this.

How can DaS 3 be better than DaS if it's not even better than DaS 2?

>Doom did shooting first so everything else is trash

Not wrong I guess but still.

What's wrong with this?

I-frames ended on stair ledge, you went to the drop frames just in time to be caught by the knight.

Git gud my dude

Jokes on you I started with DaS2.

nah you're just fuckin shit lol

play all of them